“That’s ridiculous,” Doris said.
“Just an excuse because someone lost some town records, I’m sure,” Georgia said.
Boop turned to her friends but averted her eyes when she smiled and nodded. Her tongue tasted like tin and felt dry, like she’d stuffed her mouth with cotton.
“I don’t know,” Natalie said, sounding self-assured, even argumentative. “At the chamber meeting they all seemed convinced that something had happened to the winner and the sponsor dropped out. But if there was some kind of town moratorium on the title, it’s over.”
“Says who?” Boop hadn’t meant to challenge her, but she wanted to know.
“Says me.” Natalie sat straight, stretching upright from her hunched pedi position. “I thought a pageant would be a way to boost business this summer, which I really need to do this year. I asked why there was no Miss South Haven and no one knew anything concrete. So, Miss South Haven it is. Seems like a no-brainer.”
“The town has done fine without it,” Boop said.
“Maybe, but it could be just the thing I need.”
“How so?” Doris asked.
Natalie glanced around. “Business is great in the summer but really falls off during the rest of the year. I need it to pick up before Labor Day to make up for the slower months.”
“And doing nails for a few girls will make a difference?” Georgia asked.
“Yes, but it’s more than that,” Natalie said. “My name will be on every flyer, every poster, every program, every ad. I couldn’t pay for that kind of publicity.”
Boop wished she could argue that Natalie was wrong.
“And now I’m curious too,” Natalie said. “What could have been so horrible that they wiped a whole pageant out of South Haven’s history?” Natalie led Boop from the pedicure chair to her manicure station. “You and your friends grew up here—do you know anything about what happened?”
Georgia had followed and sat at the station next to Boop. “That was a long time ago. But if anything comes to mind, we’ll let you know.”
“It doesn’t really matter.” Natalie examined Boop’s fingernails as if there were an answer hidden beneath. “It’s water under the bridge.”
Her voice faded into distant, muffled hums.
Boop was drowning.
The cab ride home was quiet until Boop sniffled.
“Are you okay?” Georgia asked.
Boop shrugged. She felt jostled and bruised, as if her memories had roughed her up instead of having appeared in type on a piece of pink paper. “I’m sorry this is how your visit is turning out. We were supposed to have fun like we did when we were girls.”
Doris chuckled. “That would kill us.”
Boop smiled. “You know what I mean. We’re caught up in Hannah’s drama and in my past.”
“When did we have the most fun back in the day?” Georgia asked. “When we holed up in your bedroom and talked. About school, about boys, about clothes, about our parents.”
“We’re together. That’s the important thing,” Doris said.
“I know,” Boop said. “But you came back at the same time, after so long, and that’s when all heck breaks loose in my life? It’s like the universe conspired against me.”
Doris leaned her head back and chuckled. “You don’t think the timing is a coincidence, do you? The universe didn’t conspire against you. No sirree. The universe armed you.”
Back home, Boop excused herself to her bedroom. She flipped the brass hook into its eye on the doorjamb, though the hardware served more as a delay than a blockade. Anyone who was to turn the doorknob and push would encounter only slight resistance, which was fine with her. There was a precarious nature to living alone. Boop was independent, but not foolhardy. If there was an emergency, someone could get inside to save her.
Talking about Abe with Hannah and the girls was one thing. She could temper the story, omit details, paint it pretty. But who could protect her from her recollections of the long-ago Miss South Haven pageant that served as her life’s turning point?
She’d never been glad Marvin was gone, but now, God help her, she was relieved he wasn’t there to hear about the new pageant. During the first years of their marriage, any reference to a beauty pageant had set him to sulking, as if he had needed to remind Boop of the past without mentioning it. Later, the televised Miss America and Miss Universe contests were discouraged in their home, and Marvin had always harrumphed and snorted at the idea that a girl would want to do such a thing. He knew she had been such a girl, but Boop kept her promise and had never mentioned how she’d longed for the title of Miss South Haven throughout her girlhood. After all, Marvin had been a kind husband, and she found no reason to upset him, even when he involved himself in every part of her life—except for her outings to South Haven.
He’d chosen her clothes from Marshall Field’s on State Street and preferred Boop cook meat loaf on Tuesdays, tuna casserole on Wednesdays, and roast chicken for Shabbos. Those were his favorite meals. But, in Marvin’s defense, he had always complimented her cooking and her appearance, so Boop didn’t see the harm in any of it. Marvin had encouraged Boop’s leisure time activities like bridge and canasta with bellowing enthusiasm, neighborhood boasting, and gifts such as the best bridge table and chairs he could buy. He’d provided a hardy fund with which she could buy the latest cookbook or even cater a gathering of her friends, who were envious of her good fortune in landing a husband who was generous and stable.
She was a lucky girl.
Boop had never forgotten Nannie’s words.
The trade-off for Boop was that Marvin had never balked at the summers she spent in South Haven with Stuart, or the weekends she escaped the suburban turmoil or trials of motherhood on her own, handing Stuart off to her mother-in-law on occasion.
She never said she wanted to go, but that she needed to
